Awesome zoas.... bad lighting! Help with t5 bulb combo!!

[jafoca]

So I just picked up a sweet rock of palys from my LFS. They were supposed to be GPE (according to the guy that ordered them), and I waited there for an hour for them to unpack them and watch them open up.

These palys were amazing! Very large polyps, had the green mouth. The coloring was great! They had sort of a desert fox speckled pattern to them, but the speckles in the middle were almost goldish. The disc was deep purple, and the fringe a nice green and almost fluorescent green when viewed top down.

I got between 20-30 polyps of these for 90$, but they definitely looked worth it.

I got them home and put them in my tank, and I have to say that now they don't look nearly as stunning! They look much more like my desert foxes, just sortof green/ light greenish.

The LFS has a PFO solaris hood, and I have 4x39 T5HO, so I am blaming the spectrum of my bulbs for my dissatisfaction. Currently I am running 2x genaric 10k bulbs and 2x ati blue+ (I think...)

Does it sound reasonable that my crappy bulb selection is to blame for these corals loosing their luster? Have any recommendations for bulbs? I am thinking that I should purchase a good 10k and a good actinic, then run with one 10k, one actinic, and the 2 blue+

 

[Kigs!]

a local buddy of mine runs 4 t5 bulb combo like you and his colors are amazing, even compared to some zoas under MH in my tank. maybe he can chime in here... but i think he's running 3 blues and 1 daylight, instead of half/half.

 

[dc_909]

I would

ati aqualblue
ati B+
UVL SA

and either another B+ or aquablue depending on how blue you want it.

 

[jafoca]

do you guys think I can replicate the spectrum of the Solaris well enough to make these palys look good again?

Interesting combo dc...

 

[fishes2889]

The LFS has a PFO solaris hood, and I have 4x39 T5HO,

To be completely honest, there is no comparing the solaris fixtures against T5's or MH's. I recently just saw it in person compared corals in each tank(right next to each other & the same type of corals) and i was drooling :drool:

What i run on my tank is geismann, and they are great.

2-Aquablue plus (11k)
1-Actinic plus
1-Pure actinic

 

[matasw]

Not to hijack but does anybody have any recommendations for a 6 bulb?

 

[impur]

I really like how my corals look under my lights. I have 6-54w TEK T5 fixture with

3-actinic+
2-aquablue+
1-6500k daylight

I get great growth, much better then the 250w 14k MH i had on my last tank.

 

[Ike]

For 6 bulb I run 2 x ATI Blue+ 2 x ATI Aquablue 1 x Geismann Actinic (the UVL is better but was unavailable at the time) and 1 x GE 6500. If you want par out of a bluer light the ATI bulbs are the way to go.

 

[delsol650]

look for new bulbs fuji purple and sfligi ?? atinics..
I got the new GE3000K reds

I will be running this next week

3 ATI Blue +
1 ATI Aqua Blue
1 UVA Aqua Sun
2 GE 3000K (RED)
2 Sfligi? Atinics

1 of the bulbs will be moved around depending on looks. Also will be getting the Fuji Purple in the next coming weeks to see if it improves the look.

 

[THE BEAUT]

I run the same as IKE, but have the UVL Super Actinic. Love this combo over the 4 blue+ and 2 Aquablues i had before.

 

[Ike]

To the OP, I haven't seen the Solaris in action yet, but from what I've heard the colors they can create with corals is unmatched by any other lighting on the market.